if it was a real republican, i would vote for them, but it's not. if i won't vote for them but they're not for me. host: why did you choose to vote today as opposed to waiting to november 6? caller: because i have to work and by the time i get off work the place will be closed so i want to do it early and make sure i could feel good about my decision. host: the chairman of the mecklenburg democratic party, are you seeing this kind of thought going into folks doing their early voting in mecklenburg county? guest: absolutely. we have had record turnout on the first day there were 15,000 voters. we had 22 early voting

locations, there is one stop early voting and that is a great opportunity for mecklenburg county and you don't have to wait until election day, you can vote early. as for the storm, if everyone votes this weekend that will help us to work around rain on tuesday. everyone has saturday, sunday and monday before the rain might hit here. so i would encourage everyone to get out and vote right away. and i don't know that i agree with everything that the caller had to say but i will say that i do support the president because i think he supports all americans and i think he supports all the people here and that's the reason i'm supporting president obama. host: we are talking to the chair of the mecklenburg democratic party.

today we're putting the spotlight on north carolina and joining us to talk about what's going on in north carolina from the republican perspective is the chairman of the mecklenburg republican party. welcome to the program guest: how are you. host: tell us about the status of things from a republican perspective in mecklenburg county now. guest: things are going well right now. we're up 50% over where we were in 2008. and just working to turn out the vote now through election day. host: in the c.q..com we've got an article talking about north carolina john mccain lost any state by a closer margin than he did in north carolina.

how have things changed for republicans and for the republican candidate between 2008 and 2012? guest: i think there is a significant difference in our ground game between 2008 and 2012 f. you remember in 2008 the republicans were looking back to 2004 when we carried the state for bush by the largest margin in the country. at that point folks at the national level didn't realize we could be a swing state or going to obama.

that's different this time around. they started ground game here earlier than ever before in history. and we've put more staffers on the ground and more people making phone calls and that's been a strong part of our effort heading into this election. host: we want to take calls from anybody who is watching the show. the numbers are -- a lot of talk regarding the storm off

the coast of the carolinas, sandy, what are the plans for the republican operatives for the ground game should that storm make land fall in the carolinas either monday or tuesday? guest: i'm not sure that sandy is going to have an impact on us in north carolina especially in this area. it looks as if it's aiming toward delaware and virginia. here if it does, it will graze the coast which isn't very heavily populated and head up to the northeast. with that said, it looks like it's going to be a rain any day so we're doing our best to turn out as many republicans as possible. host: our first call comes from scott in connecticut on our line for republicans. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. i've been paying attention to this year's election.

i believe it's crucial to our country in so many ways. and i just have a question is why the obama's record really has not been brought into light with his jobs 25,000 that never took place, the closing of guantanamo bay which never happened and nothing transpired from it? host: your response? guest: that has been a main focus we've been working to get the message out on that there were a lot of promises that were made in 2008 that haven't been delivered on. it's important we change the tone in washington and put somebody in place that can deliver on the jobs we need.

host: next up is a caller from north carolina on our line for democrats. caller: i am so thank to feel get y'all because i think people need to hear this. how can they continue to blame president obama for not keeping all his promises when the republicans all agreed when he first became president to stop him every step of the way? when they agreed to not let him succeed? because he's a black man, they do not want to see a black president succeed. they would rather let the country fall off a cliff than see a black man succeed. guest: i'd strongly disagree with that assertion. when he came in power he had

filibuster approved majority in the senate and he chose not to work with republicans at that time moderate republicans who have worked with democrats throughout the past. he focused on getting the healthcare law pushed through without considering republican options. and i think that poisoned everything for moving forward. so i would strongly disagree with that in terms of he had plenty of chances to deliver on the promises he made and he didn't. and during that period he chose not to work with republicans. host: next up is fill in north carolina on our independent line. caller: i just wanted to say that despite the media blackout gary johnson is going to have a profound impact on this election. he's got my vote because the democrats talk peace and kill

178 children with drone warfare in pakistan and they say that's not tough enough. and i don't know how many dead children it would take to satisfy mitt romney and the republicans. guest: talk to us about the effects as you see them of third party candidates on the republican effort in north carolina. guest: right now from what we're seeing it doesn't look like it's having an impact. to the extent they are drawing folks out it's from both parties and doesn't look like it's going to impact the presidential race or other races where libertarians are running. host: we've got a tweet --

guest: i'm not sure what to make of that. we certainly have our issues but the fact is that this is a state that traditionally has gone for republican nominees for president and i believe we're going to return to that in 2012. host: next up is rich on our republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. last night i was watching the news and they were talking about the cast of electoral votes and they were talking about the possibility that the electoral votes could wide up high and the house would elect romney as the president and the senate would elect biden as the vice president. as we go forward next week and i know the electoral votes may wind up determining the election.

could you guys put something together and kind of explain that? i never thought that was a possibility. and i get my news from you guys because everything else is so twisted i don't care what station your on. and the only other thing i'd like to make a comment on is republicans are not racist, people are racist. when you didn't call that lady out, so please when somebody races a stupid comment like that you guys need to step in and say knock that off. host: that's rich in virginia and we'll talk with our producers about doing a segment so everybody has an understanding about what is going on. back to calls for the chair of the republican party in mecklenburg north carolina. betty is on our line for democrats calling from mississippi.

caller: good morning. i want to know yesterday i watched romney's speech in iowa, his economic speech and one of the things that caught my attention was he started complaining about obama and his standing on the stimulus. but ironically he was giving his economic speech at a company that had received stimulus funds. evidently romney need to do his homework. and he complained there are 23 million americans out of work, 23 million americans out of work but when he was at bain capital and caused all those plants to close down and shipped the jobs overseas he's part of that 23 million americans out of work. guest: talk to us about the economic situation in north carolina and what if any stimulus money came through the

state and if it's going to have any effect on the election. guest: the job situation in north carolina isn't great. it's 9.7% unemployment in the state. i believe we're 47th nationally in terms of unemployment ranking. we're known for being a place that's been a strong business climate and place for people to come and build careers and that's not been going on for the last few years. you look at north carolina and it's a democratic governor, it was up to 2010 a democratic legislature for over 100 years and obviously a democratic president and that is something that we need to address and we need to work to make north carolina more business friendly and a place that's going to grow jobs for our future.

host: we are talking to the republican chair of the mecklenburg north carolina. he is talking to us about information about their operations can be found at m ekg op.com >> calling from north carolina go ahead. caller: i would like to say that i think everyone is the whole idea is that the public, the people that vote are the ones that's behind time actually because i voted for obama from the beginning through the candidacy and being elected president. people don't know anything because they don't study what

is being said and done. i've been keeping up with it all this time. i just feel like it's wrong for them not to know what is going on. and for the republicans to tell them what to do. host: tell us about some of the efforts going on with the republican party in mecklenburg county as far as getting information out about your candidate and getting registered voters out to the polling places. guest: obviously we've gotten the advertisements that are going on radio and tv and in 2008 we weren't set up for twitter or facebook. we've got 6,000 followers on twitter and 3,000 on facebook. those are things we're using to keep our activist up to date

and doing the work we need. obviously right now it's all coming down to knocking on doors and making phone calls. and we've got two different offices open which usually we have one set up and running 12 hours a day to make sure we've driving out the vote as much as possible. host: we've got a tweet who wants to know -- guest: to be honest i'm not sure. obviously, sports authority and states are doing pretty well but as far as specific north carolina companies i haven't seen anything to that effect. host: we're going to talk to brian in michigan on our line for republicans. caller: thanks. i think you might have to update your chart there. i think michigan may become a battleground state but irregardless, can you hear

me? host: yes. caller: i was going to say one thing about benghazi but let that go. we're in the global economy that the new world order which was brought in by the first george bush signed into law by clinton so this is bipartisan, that is our economy and we wrote the rules as far as a global economy for the world to follow and now others are following it. so when we talk about shipping jobs overseas and things of that nature, that is the game. we can't move the goal post, we wrote the rules. and i'll close on the great city of detroit, when we talk about the bailout and which way it should go or bain capital. people have to realize, they have to understand that most of general motors jobs are now presently overseas and the head

of general motors who took all the money is now crying that 7.5 million in pay is not enough. the united auto workers are still at entry level being hired in at over $19 an hour that's their pay but their total compensation with healthcare and bonuses comes out to $55 an hour. host: talk to us about the economic situation particularly in mecklenburg county and in charlotte which is a big banking center. guest: it is primarily a finances center. we've been working to expand our energy base as well. but historically as the been a finances center. we took a strong hit in 2008 when bank of america got hit.

but it's still a finances town. host: an in colorado is our next caller on our line for independence. go ahead. caller: thank you. i used to work for one of the financial firms and interested because north carolina is a large financial center and romney is the businessman to get the economy going but he said that he's going to reverse frank d.o.d. and i think he was -- dodd-frank and he said that he was going to maintain and that was tendering to the independents. the best i can tell he and ryan's policy simulate britain's which is in a full blown recession.

so non-can tell what romney is saying or speaking. i think he says whatever to close the deal on wall street and i think he is saying anything to close the deal to the presidency. host: go ahead. guest: i think mitt romney has been pretty straightforward on where he is going to be focusing his presidency in terms of the five-point plan to get america going again and rebuild and bring 23 million jobs. regarding dodd-frank there were good ideas in there but it needs to be reworked. the whole concept of going in and legitimizing the too big to fail bank should concern all americans. so there is definitely some changes that need to be made in that piece of legislation. host: next up is kenneth from north carolina on our line for democrats. caller: good morning.

i appreciate you taking my call. i've already taken advantage of the early voting. i voted for obama and i'd like to say that the president he's done a lot of things the best he could. i hear the people say he made promises however the kind of work that he had based on all the information that you heard the first two years that it was predominantly democratic, he had those two years to work and that was very hostile considering where the country was at in those two years. but this is a president who has proven to be for all people. host: do you want to respond to that? guest: to look at those two

years and look at where the priorities were placed there are a lot of folks who think he should have been building jobs those first two years instead of passing the obama care act. with regard to even the stimulus the way he structured that, obviously we have issues with the structure. but if you look at where that money was invested and not going into needed infrastructure projects that he's talking about now. $1 trillion was spent in that and if infrastructure he cease as a problem he could have invested more at that point. if you look across the board it's a matter of priorities and he didn't make a priority of changing the tone in washington or creating jobs at that point when he really could. and that's something that we need to work to move on into the future. host: our last call for

chairman of the republican party in mecklenburg north carolina. caller: i want to say that i'm for romney this year. i gave obama a chance four years, and it's gotten worse. i'm not racist. this hasn't got anything to do with parties or race. it's got something to do with country. host: you voted for the president from 2008 you're not in 2012, what is the difference in then and now? caller: look at the economy. host: you get the last word. guest: she makes a great point in terms of looking at the difference between 2008 and 2012 is that obama did not have a record to run on in 2008. he ran on some strong promises

and rhetoric he didn't deliver on those and you look at what he's delivered and i think a lot of americans and a lot of people are coming to the realization he's not the man to lead us for the next four years and mitt romney is. host: we have been talking to the chairman of the republican party in mecklenburg as part of our battleground 2012 series. we've been looking at north carolina today. thank you for being on the program. >> form ch tomorrow on "washington journal" we look at the early voting in several states. then we'll take a look at pennsylvania. .

"washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern live on c-span. >> good afternoon everybody. complex storm and complex geographical area to cover and i'm going to let the experts tell you about the storm. what fema is doing is preparing for the coastle impacts of this storm and preparing for power outages and winter storm. and if you think about winter storm with a hur cane is unusual, trust me we're going to be dealing with a lot of weather over a large area. that's why we're urging the area to prepare for a variety of hazards and we're encouraging them to take the time to get a plan. we have teams in place or have moved, in some cases we are

still recovering from prior decasters and those teams will be there to for responses as well as other teams to supply generators and communications support are moving into the area. today we did brief the president and he has directed to us continue to make sure we have the resources moving to the area and we continue to work through the governor's teams based on this dynamic changing situation as we prepare for the impacts of hurricane sandy. >> thank you. we have a very large category one hurricane off the coast of the united states today. the intensity is not exectsed to change now and when the center of circulation comes to shore in the mid northeast area

sometime monday or tuesday morning. this is a very large system and the weather will start to go downhill from virginia through new jersey and then points north and inland from there. we already have tropical storm conditions on the coast of north carolina and because of the large size, again the weather will deteriorate well in the sent of circulation and then we anticipate the system will slow down after coming ashore on tuesday and wins. and when you have a large slow moving system it is capable of producing larger storm surge areas, longer periods of potentially damaginging wind at the coast and inland and over a larger area and longer periods of heavy rain over a large area. so there is a flood potential

so there is not just a coatle event although the hazards do start at the coast with a storm surge and who gets the worst is difficult to pinpoint right now depending on what ang it will storm comes in and what intensity it is. but there is a large potential over a large area and coastle areas all the way from virginia up through connecticut. and it was mentioned there is a winter weather potential here. and what we're doing to propair for the impact to a large number of people is >> i want to re-emphasize we're near certain this topical sandy will make land fall on the east coast south to west. and that has the ramifications

for surge and those issues that were pointed to. we are looking at potential of [inaudible] i also want to note on the edge of this system will expand and cover the eastern third of the country that we're also looking at the potential for strong winds in fact ohio valley eastern great lakes area as well. we mentioned the heavy rainfall, it now appears that the area near the storm center and then expanding out in a very large distance northwest and north of the system, we're looking at rainfall potentials, five, six, seven, eight inches over a large area. so we have a very significant potential for inland flooding, especially in areas in

maryland, pennsylvania, right now that's the focus. that could expand as this system evolves. lastly, i'll mention a snow potential. there is a heavy snow potential in virmvirge as the colder system wraps into this expanding low off the coast. and we're now looking potential snowfall exceeding two feet in areas of west virginia. and the access of snow will extend into western virginia and into the mountains of west and north carolina. >> in his weekly address president obama talks she discusses the u.s. economy and tax policy.

>> hi, everybody. it has now been four years since the crisis that began on wall street spread to main street, hammering middle-class families and costing our economy 9 million jobs. since then, we have fought our way back. our businesses have added more than 5 million new jobs. the unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level since i took office. home values are rising again. and assembly lines are humming once more. to make sure america never goes through a crisis like that again, we passed tough new wall street reform to end taxpayer funded bailout for good. all for reform also created the first ever in the pan a consumer watchdog, who sold job is to look out for you. that means making sure that you have all the information that you need to make import financial decisions like buying a home, were paying for college. and it means going after anyone who tries to take advantage of you or rip you off. but starting this month, that includes the folks who come up with your credit score. if you have not checked your credit score recently, you should. at a major impact on your life.

it can determine whether or not you qualify for a loan or what kind of interest you have to pay. it can even affect your chances of renting an apartment or getting a job. and here is the thing, the companies that put your credit score together can make mistakes. they may think you had a loan or credit card that was never yours. they may think that you were late making a payment when you were on time. and when they mess up, you are the one who suffers. until this week, if you had a complete, he took to the company. sometimes they listen to, sometimes they did not. that was pretty much it. they were your only real hope. well, not anymore. if you have a complaint about your credit score that has not been properly addressed, you could go to consumer finance.gov/complaint and let the consumer watchdog know. not only will they bring the complaint directly to the company in question, that will give you a tracking number so you can check back to see what

is being done on your behalf. and fixing your credit score is not the only thing they can help you with. if you are opening a bank account, trying to get a student loan, or applying for credit card and something does not seem right, you could let them know and will check it out. if you are looking to buy a home and want to know if you're getting a fair deal on your mortgage, give them a call and will give you an answer. their only mission is to fight for you. and when needed, they will take action. for example, alongside other regulators, they recently ordered three big credit card companies to return more than $400 million to folks who were deceived or misled into buying things they did not want or understand. that is what wall street reform is all about. looking out for working families and making sure that everyone is planned by the same rules. sadly, that has not been enough to stop republicans in congress from fighting these reforms. backed by an army of financial industry lobbyists, they are waging an all-out battle to delay, the throne, and dismantle these new roles. i refuse to let that happen.

i believe the free market is one of the greatest forces of progress in human history and the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not the government. but i also believe the free market has never been about taking whatever you want, however you can get it. alongside our innovative spirit, america's only prosperous when we meet certain obligations to one another and when we all play by the same set of rules. we have come too far and sacrificed too much to go back to an era of top-down, when iran economics. as long as i'm president, we will keep moving this country forward so that everyone, whether you start a business or punch a clock, and have confidence if you work hard you can get ahead. thanks, and have a great weekend. >> hello, i am ann wagner, from the heartland of st. louis, missouri. i worked at a young age at the small retail carpet business my parents started. i vacuumed, a tag sale items

come and work my way to the show room floor. but as that happened, that is where i met a young man working his way through high school, named ray, my husband of 25 years and the father of my three beautiful children. we are truly blessed, but like so many of you, we worry for future. our economy is hurting. our national debt is exploding. and the president's policies are making things worse. americans deserve leaders that can keep their promises and will not let up until our future is secure in our economy is strong. that is why i am supporting mitt romney, and is why i am asking for the support of missouri's second congressional district. as a first-time candidate, i do a lot of listening. for all of the fear that i hear out there, the one thing that i hear most often is we can do better. it is what our parents taught us. i remember watching mind twill morning, noon, and at night. i saw my father deal with every

take the government through his way, whether it had to do with the signs on the front of the building or the prices on the showroom floor. he knew that he could do better if government would just get out of the way it and stay out of the way. and he was right. when we get government off the backs of our job creators, small businesses have a better chance of thriving. and when small businesses thrive, so does our economy. that is why instead of raising taxes, we ought to fix our 72,000 page monstrosity of a tax code, so we can keep jobs here and bring jobs home that have gone overseas. we should repeal the president's health care law, which makes it harder for small businesses to hire. and replace it with reforms that actually the work costs and protect the doctor-patient

relationship. and instead of getting into high gas and energy prices, let's jump start the development of america's vast domestic energy resources. let's build the keystone pipeline. let's expand the exploration and use of natural gas and coal. these are all good ideas that mitt romney supports. the president obama has ignored or rejected. that is disappointing, especially considering how his policies have failed. he promised to listen. he promised us change. but all we have got is more of the same. more spending, more red tape, more debt and decline. a loss of hope. the united states senate, run by the president's party, has not passed a budget in more than 3.5 years. that is irresponsible. and reckless. now the president is demanding another tax increase on small businesses that would destroy more than 700,000 jobs and drive our economy of the fiscal cliff. here in missouri, we count on coal for 82% of our electricity. president obama's were on call is threatening higher

electricity prices for families and job creators. we cannot go on like this. this election is not about president obama, the person. it is about his failed presidency and failed leadership. our country is going in the wrong direction. and mitt romney is the only leader who can turn this economy around. did americans back to work, and build the better america our parents worked and sacrificed to make possible. that is the opportunity before us. and it is the one that we must seize, for the sake of our children and the future of our great nation. god bless your families and may god continue to bless the united states of america. >> watch our coverage of the

presidential candidates pless debates from key house, senate, and governor's races. a debate between the candidates in the north carolina governor's race. a discussion on the role of volunteers in the presidential campaigns. after that, lawyers previewed the supreme court's oral argument into upcoming cases. i newsmakers, rand paul talks about campaign 2012. he will also talk about why he is pac is buying ad supporting todd akin and richard murdock. >> it is a great source of the

intermission for the public. if you want to know what is going on, c-span has it covered. i like booktv, that is my favorite. c-span offers exactly at the news as it is happening. it does not offer commentary, is just telling you the facts. the decisions are not in tokyo. to me, that is very int -- the decisions are not being told to you. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979. >> the governor's race in north carolina. the current democratic

lieutenant governor of the state. the former mayor of charlotte. this is an hour. this live debate is being televised across north carolina. we appreciate you being with us tonight and we are confident it will be in light of information for those who either have already voted for plan to vote on november 6. before we get started, let's meet the nominees. one of them will be our next governor.

walter delton is finishing his first term as north carolina lieutenant governor. his career began in 1996 as a state senator and served six terms representing rutherford and cleveland counties. pat mccoury became the 53rd mayor of charlotte and served seven terms as the queen city leader. he began his political career in 1989 as a city councilman. >> a few moments ago, we flipped a coin to see the order of how the questions would be asked to night. mr. mccoury won the coin toss. >> our first question is about the economy and unemployment. north carolina has one of the

highest unemployment rates in the country. as governor, you cannot make law so realistically speaking, what can you do to fix this problem and what would you do in your first month? >> there are several things i would do -- i think north carolina has to get into the energy business. we have been sitting on the sideline for too long regarding natural gas exploration and offshore drilling while other states have moved quickly and those states have much lower unemployment. they are contributing to energy independence. the second thing we need to do is reform our tax system and make it more competitive at least with our neighboring states. the third thing we must do is work on regulations. as i traveled the state, i am often told that regulations are strangling small businesses throughout north carolina. currently, they say the

government treats small businesses as an adversary as opposed to the customer. they often tell me that they take small business and midsize businesses for granted the last thing i want to do is completely reform our education system from pre-k, k-12, high school, and universities so when kids get out of school they have a basic reading and math skills necessary. we want them to have the basic skills to get a job because right now there is a major disconnect even though we are the fifth highest unemployment rate. have employers that cannot find qualified employees right here in north carolina. that is unacceptable. >> all four of those proposals are large-scale proposals that would take some time to implement. is there something you can do in your first month as governor? >> everything i would implement

we have to start thinking long- term. one thing i learned as mayor is that short-term remedies usually don't have long-term solutions. i am talking about big plans because we are in the pits right now regarding our economy as a leader, you need to look at solutions that are not just something that will correct the problem in a month or two and you are right back with the same problem. long-term solutions are needed for a difficult and complex problems that we have in north carolina. >> i want to thank north carolina wesleyan and rocky mount for posting this. the problem with what he just said by his own admission, trucking and offshore oil is 10 years out. we need jobs now. the reform of the tax code, he wants to say that tax codes pay 0%. the budget and tax center says

his plan will raise taxes and 80% of the people in north carolina, working families to middle-class and senior citizens. his campaign was asked what are the details of that plan and they said they would not give them out. they said because it would be dead on arrival and that is the reason it would be dead on arrival. i have a plan that brings us back very quickly. we have to reinvent our economy. i am from a textile town and i remember recessions. orders would go down and people would be laid off and orders would come back and people would come back to work. we saw a fast-track trade policies back in 2004 accelerate the loss of our jobs offshore. there is no place to go back to now. we have to reinvent our economy. i have a specific plan on the internet, walter delton.org put the long-term unemployed back to work. we will give tax breaks for businesses who will hire those people. this will allow businesses to hire someone on unemployment for eight weeks, 24 hours a day --

24 hours a week. they will draw a partial benefit and it allows them to test them out and make sure they will do well. other states have saved money by doing that with a partial benefit. it gives a tax break to small business and builds jobs for the future. there is a revision in there for manufacturing. there is a provision on how we spend our military economy. there is a provision on keeping people coming back to the areas they came from and revitalizing for all areas. we have to invest in resource and that's how you create jobs of the future, new economies following cutting edge research and division. we have to encourage entrepreneurs, innovation, and creativity. >> i want to remind the citizens of north carolina that four

years ago when i ran against the lieutenant governor, she said almost the identical thing. he supported the exact same policies that she enacted in the past four years that have failed miserably. as a result, north carolina has the fifth highest unemployment in america. he said it will take five-six years to implement frakking and that's exactly what governor perdue said four years ago. if you keep delaying, we will always be five-six years behind other states that have taken the leadership and initiative. >> what i have told you was not based on political talk points,

it is based on research and analysis that uses best practices to bring north carolina back. >> staying with jobs and the economy -- we mentioned the unemployment rate -- is at 9.6% that amounts to about 400,000 people still without jobs in north carolina. looking ahead based on the numbers you just mentioned, where juicy the unemployment rate one year from now? >> if you implement my plan, i think we can reduce it as much as 3%. my plan put people back to work now. there are jobs out there. baby boomers are getting older and we may need more nurses and

assistance and physical therapists and radiologists and people working in rest homes. we can grow the military economy. and the equipment is coming back from iran and iraq and i think it is going to alabama for georgia and we can do that in north carolina and save the federal government millions of dollars. we actually grew jobs in biotechnology in the great recession. i have a provision in my plan that takes the growth in taxes and earmarks those to put it back into by a texas we can continue to grow that. entrepreneurship has been essential. people greeted their own business and they -- and some of them are thriving. we need to encourage that sort think we can immediately reduce the unemployment rate rapidly and to all that but also build the jobs for the future as the north carolina stays strong in this 21st century, it.

>> mr. mccoury, where you see as being in one year from now? >> the best way to measure thing is the benchmark against your competitors. within a year, i hope we are at least beating south carolina. we should at least be beating south carolina. [laughter] i hope we are also beating tennessee and virginia. businesses are moving to south carolina and moved to tennessee and virginia because we have been a non-business friendly state. under the regulations and the taxes that mr. dalton has supported and helped pass in the years he has been in office, it will be difficult. employers will not hire someone regardless of the tax credit if you cannot find a qualified employee. they will not take someone who cannot read and does not have basic writing skills. we need to have two pathways to success in our education. one pathway is a four-year degree and another pathway is a vocational degree curriculum. we are forcing way too many people to go to college curriculum when many of these people have skills to buildings and repair things or fix things.

this is the old type of thinking in education that i think is hurting our marketplace and contributing to the unemployment rate in north carolina. >> we will talk about education but a year from now, where do you see the unemployment rate? >> i would like us to be beating our neighboring states. i'm not a predictor of national and international things and i will not predict the stock market either. if i could, i would be a very wealthy man. >> employment in north carolina has been low for the last five years and has grown an average of 9000 students per year. per pupil spending is in the

lowest tier, often and the lowest tender in the country. has this state ever invested -- spent too much money for education? is there ever enough money for education? >> is a great question. the basic truth is there is no new money if you look at a north carolina budget until we grow the economy. i am being straight with the people of north carolina. we owed $2.8 billion to the federal government for unemployment insurance my opponent was budget chairman of the senate and they have over $3 billion surplus and the leadership just spent it all with no long-term plan in case we had a recession. we spent the highway trust fund and spent the reserves and we are in trouble. we have to live with what we have right now. the way to do it -- we've got four different silos of education -- pre-k, k-tel, community colleges, and universities.

i will make those four entities start working together instead of fighting each other. one other thing that will change is the ipad and technology. it will help provide opportunities in rural and urban areas with the best teachers and technology and will end up reducing the cost of education. we have to look a better way to do things with higher-quality. >> have we ever spent too much for education and is there ever enough money? >> we have never spent too much. i want to comment on the ratings. steve forbes or ran for president as a republican.

he says north carolina has the third best business rating. we are above south carolina. we want to do better and we need to do better. a lot of our economy is the trade policy and the credit policy from the federal government eight years ago. on the $3 billion, he is wrong on that and the fact check will show he is wrong. we spent $800 million for hurricane floyd to help the rocky mount audience that is out there today. on education, in today's world, we are not going to out recruit any state or country unless we out educate them. it is a knowledge-based economy and we have to invest in education. the cuts that he supported and will rubber-stamp should he be governor have not helped at all. we have to invest in education and i have a specific plan that does that. this tracking system defines a

15-year-old career before the 15-year-old has defined him or herself. that is not right. i put the money back in that early childhood program. i'm happy to have governor hunt's endorsement. we need to put that money back in. the federal reserve says that the best dollar you can spend in education is in early childhood education. go to my website and you will see how we do that. we will respect teachers and begin to get them back to the national average on pay and treat them as professionals and given the professional development to take the best practices into the classroom. we will align education both to the needs of the students and to the workforce needs of the future. that way we will compete with every other state and that the

way we will compete with every other country and that the way we become a global leader. >> in all fairness, you talk about a big rubber-stamped, he is not a governor. there is no way of knowing what he will support. that has not happened yet. >> may i speak to that? speaker tillis says he talks to pat every day but i assume he is weighing in on these issues. he ran for governor four years ago. in never commented on those cuts other than by his silence. he never said he was not for them. >> it is almost like i have more power not being governor than my opponent had when he was lieutenant governor.

one thing we have to remind people is that education was hurt when governor easley was governor and i also want to say with all of interest in education. there is no one i know against education. one of the man responsible is a lieutenant governor is to attend community college board meetings and the board of education meetings. his attendance rate was less than 40%. when i was mayor of charlotte, if someone did not attend a meeting, 2/3 of the meetings, they were removed from that committee. i will work very closely with the next lieutenant governor to make sure that lieutenant governor is very engaged in the community college board meetings and governor perdue, the boards of the major institutions of k- 12, community colleges and universities, has not met for 2.5 years. we need to bring these people together to have a plan for our

students. that should be our objective. >> we will go next to taxes. >> let me respond to that attendance. law says that the lieutenant governor and treasurer may appoint a sworn designee to attend on their behalf. i had a sworn designate that attended which i think was close to 100%. that is an acknowledgment that we do have other duties. my sworn designee attend those meetings when i cannot be there. you look at my record in the north carolina senate and my voting record was well over 99%. i am attentive to my duties and i do a good job with that. i do a good job with that. that is a bogus hit as far as